50/50 care and cms stress

hi,

CMS are very rigid. without a formal arrangement like a court order in place, they will now expect you to pay the amount they calculated for you. They have some silly rules, like if there is a dispute about overnight shared care, they call it assumed shared care and will put you down as having kids 1 night a week, unless your ex tells them you have kids more. for now I would suggest you only pay the £285 they calculated. if your on direct pay scheme, pay it into ex bank account with the reference: CHILD MAINTENANCE. It now seems only way to correct this is by getting a court order, stating how many nights kids stay with you, or whether it is equal 50/50 day to care between both parents (which means there is no maintenance to pay)

I don't think you should apply for child benefit at this stage. Child benefit will likely ask for evidence like a court order. if you have another child living with you, if you tell CMS, they will reduce your payment slightly. and will also reduce if you spend a lot on travel to pick up and drop kids. needs to be minimum £10 per week expense.

My understanding is that if there is a CMS order in place, then you only need to pay that sum to your ex, and bear any ‘overnight costs’ when the children stay with you, I.e. provide housing and food etc. If you pay this and nothing else then there is no basis of complaint against you. All other day-to-day costs, such as school fees, clothing, school trips, even pocket money are legally the responsibility of your ex to pay for.

However, if you do genuinely share ALL costs - i.e. equal nights residence (and thus equal overnight costs), AND all other day to day costs such as those I mention above, as well as equal responsibilities such as doctor, dentist etc. AND you can demonstrate/prove this then this is called Shared Care (note not simply overnight shared care which is something different and still means that you pay your ex in lieu of day to day care costs) and if proven the the CMS should rule that no maintenance is payable at all.

Other experts on here may know better, but I would advise that if you are happy to pay CM and for your ex to be responsible for day to day care then refuse to pay for anything over and above the CM amount (except stuff that you may wish to pay for although it isn’t enforced, such as some pocket money for example). However if you wish to genuinely share ALL costs and have the CM case rescinded completely, then carry on paying half of everything and try and convince the CMS of this. Others have mentioned that a court order to this effect is something that the CMS will listen to.

Happy to be corrected by anyone on here ..

Good luck.

I agree with the above - what you don't want to do is to get into arrears with CMS as they will then put you onto collect and pay, which will add another 20% onto your monthly payment (goes to CMS, not your ex, and she actually has a fee deducted from what she is paid), so I would pay as you have been requested, but do not pay anything above that cost, CMS consider that what you are paying is all you need to pay - they won't "credit" you with anything you pay above this. Hopefully, your ex will see that there is no benefit to her actions and it can revert to normal. I would also look at getting your contact arrangements formalised.

Thank-you for the replys I have now appealed the decision and provoded evidence that care is 50/50 and equal, I have also attached emails were my ex has said it's 50/50 , I have also raised a formal complaint about not been contacted by CMS and asked to explain there decision making process.  I will see were this gets me.

My ex has been clear I need to continue  to pay for schooll fees, lunchs and social activities,  and I have done so to demonstrate the on going equal care. The whole system is so unfair.

I also didn't realise the cms would inform my ex what  I earned per week...I am just at a loss for words how poorly treated the system is towards the father. 

@Matb

ok but you understand that

a) under the current CM case your ex is wrong - you DO NOT need to pay for school fees. lunches, and social activities (or anything over and above the prescribed CM amount)

b) if you want to convince the CMS that day-to-day care and overnight care is 50/50 (and thus hope to have the CMS order rescinded completely) then you will need to show that you are paying half of all these things

?

edit - apols on re-reading your post you are going for option b as I have annotated above.

p.s. just as an aside - my ex applied for a notional income varitaion and I was required to provide FULL financial disclosure to the Financial Investigations Unit, i.e. evidence of every penny I had. All of this to be made available to my ex should she choose to challenge the FIU decision. Of course she isn't and never will be required to provide a financial disclosure and I will not enjoy that same access to her personal information. Yes - you won't have to look far on this forum to find agreement that the system is biased against the non-resident parent.

Hi 

Many thanks for the replys,  I spoke with a case manager yesterday, who seemed sympathetic to my situation. I tried to be clear that the issue is around equal care as opposed to shared nights. I evidenced this by demonstrating how care.is equal, both having 7days and nights every 14 days  the issue if GP was bought up, its my ex's GP but i stated this was for continuity and then asked about dentist, stated it is my dentist so not sure if this can be a determing factor.

Also discussed school runs, social activities,  clothing, parents evenings, basicly all the stuff any dad would do to support his children, felt so strange having to justify this.

At one point tbe issue of child benfit was bought up and that this is a guide to identifying the resident parent, I challangec this as been unsafe and that legally this had been challenged, with the deffonition of equal care as per the children's Act 91 needing to be used, I also used there  own regulations as a point of reference. 

They are going to contact my ex and see if her view matches my own, she will have 5 days to get in touch, nor sure what happens if she doesn't?  I have also shared email evidence where we discussed 50/50 care.

It was a difficult experience that had me in tears a couple of times, I love both my daughters so much and just want the whole process to be fair, I dread what will come next, the stress is impacting on sleep and work...such a difficult place to be.

Will update once I hear back, again thank you for advice its good not to feel so alone in this situation. 

@Matb Best of luck. I agree it can be a tough place to be trying to get a fair outcome that's best for both parents and the children. Sometimes it does seem that you are swimming against the tide. Hope it all goes well. Yes I forgot about the Child Benefit - CMS pay attention to that. Let us know how it all goes.

p.s. when I split from my ex, which was after many years of trying to find a way to keep the family together, I wanted to play as full a role as father as I could post-separation. So I wanted to continue on a family-based arrangement with 50% care, shared Child Benefit, and no CMS order. I wanted to pay 50% of everything, and I wanted us all (Mum, Dad and kids) to come together occasionally to help show the kids that it wasn't the end of everything. Sadly my ex chose the CMS route and didn't want to socialise even for the sake of the kids. The way things are set up she is ably supported in that by the CMS - they do not look at the wider picture and what is best for the family as a whole. The CMS was born to make sure that otherwise absent fathers pay their fair share. Whilst they may do a reasonably good job of that, sadly the CMS is used sometimes against fathers who genuinely want to be part of their kids' lives and have every intention to pay their fair share. Not fair and not just at all. Keep up the good fight.

By the way - it is possible for each of you to claim Child Benefit for one daughter each. That way you each get the higher 'first child' CB amount, maximising the support from the state. This was in my proposal to my ex for the family-based arrangement. You would have to come to some other arrangement once the younder child was the only one receiving CB however.